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The Goddess Within

Oh, Valentine’s Day…a day fraught with such emotion…a day of expectation, desire, hope, fear, loneliness…

I remember as a child hoping that I would get Valentine’s cards and candy from my classmates and worrying so much that I wouldn’t get any. Then, as a young teen, I would hope to get one from a special someone—and didn’t. I remember being afraid to give a Valentine, for fear that I would be rejected and hurt. As an adult, I’d hope to have a date for Valentine’s Day, but I usually ended up alone.

And then, I finally met the very best friend of my life, the absolute man of my dreams, the man I would marry. And we got married on Valentine’s Day.

We both knew that if we married on Valentine’s Day that we would always remember our anniversaries, and we also knew that this troublesome, silly holiday would now be filled forever with love and meaning.

So happy Valentine’s Day and 18 year wedding anniversary to my wonderful husband, Rick.

In selecting all of the pieces that will be in this show, I got to thinking about how these gilded works came about. In a way, it ties in with the Valentine’s theme of this post.

In 2013, I had purchased some beautiful papers that were made by women in Nepal. The paper’s jewel-toned colors were so clear and vibrant. Their edges were raw, frayed, and uneven. They were laden with inherent flaws throughout, and yet, they were so beautiful. I was completely inspired. But how?

On any given day, I wake up and feel anything but fabulous. I have aches and pains, my hair is a mess, my eyes are red, I’m upset about one thing or another, I’m depressed, or goodness knows what else. I think it’s fair to say that most of us are less than perfect beings.

But we try.

We get up, get dressed, brush our teeth, fix our hair, maybe put on a little makeup—you get the idea. We perk up. We rise to the occasion, and we attempt to do it with our best foot forward—despite all of the murky undercurrents that we carry around with us.

Thinking about this, led me back to those beautiful papers, with all the flaws and imperfections, and it came to me that the perfect opposite of that textural and marred surface would be gold! And what would be better than to go right to my goddess figure, for the first piece I would create. (This is where we tie back to Valentine’s Day.) The goddess figure is one that I created as a symbol for self-love. I choose not to wait for any Valentine to validate my beauty, strength, or value. I love myself, and creating works that empower me to feel like I am okay just as I am is the greatest gift I can give to myself. It’s a gift I want to share with the world, because there is no man, woman, or child that does not need to know they are loved—first and foremost by themselves. It took me an incredibly (and unfortunately) long time to learn this.

No love gets in until I love myself.

Voler, 30x20in, 22k gold on handmade Nepali Lokta paper, 2018

Frida, 30x20in, 24k gold on handmade Nepali Lokta paper, 2018

Emile, 30x20in, 18k gold on handmade Nepali Lokta paper, 2017

So now I’ve been creating these wonderful works on paper for about six years. This will be the first show that will feature only these gilded works, and I’m pretty darned excited about it. I want everyone to have an original piece of work, made by my hands, with my love and strength and energy.